A Creed for the Third Millennium (47 page)

The eyes of a madman. He
was
mad!
What could he do to her? How could he destroy her? And then she thought, Why am
I bothering to defy him? If he wants to kill himself on this march, then let him
do so. He'll make it to Washington, he's mad enough and single-minded enough.
That's all he has to do to serve
my
ends! I was going to phase him out
anyway. And maybe I'm over-reacting to the sight of all that — that — insane
self-flagellation. The heart and the guts and the gizzard inside are fine, it's
only the outside of him and the tips of him that are maimed. He'll live, after a
period in the hospital. I was shocked. I was thrown out of myself by the sight
of what he has the power to do to himself. It's not the extent of the injuries,
it's the horror any sane person must experience at sight of what a madman can do
to himself in the name of a purpose, or his God, or any other obsession. He
wants to walk to Washington? Let him walk to Washington! It is very much to my
advantage that he does. So why am I defying him? If not to achieve this cosmic
undertaking, why did I consent to exile from my home and my real work for
months?
He is wrong!
Still I — use —him.

'All right, Joshua, if that's the way you
want it, that's the way it will be,' she said. 'But at least let me do something
for you. Let me find some ointment to ease the pain, okay?'

He let her go immediately, as if he knew
full well the nature of the debate she had just had with herself, as if he had
been sure all along that she would keep his secret. 'Go and get it, if you
must,' he said.

So she helped him up the little flight of
steps and over the side of the tub, into the roaring bubbles. Truly he did not
seem to be in pain, for he sank down into the below-blood-heat isotonic solution
of bone-healing salts with a sigh of what sounded like
genuine pleasure, and no agony crossed his face.

When she emerged from the cubicle his
family turned to her quickly; for a sick moment she thought they must have heard
what passed between her and Joshua. Then she realized that the sound of the air
being forced through the water in the tub must definitely have drowned out any
words they said, for the family's faces held only concern, normal
concern.

'He's soaking,' she said lightly. 'Why
don't the rest of you follow suit? I just have to slip out for a moment. Mama,
I've found something of real value you can do for Joshua.'

'What? What?' Mama asked eagerly, poor
thing relegated to cipher maternity.

'If I manage to get hold of some silk
pyjamas, do you think you could stitch the pants inside the trousers he'll wear
tomorrow? He's a bit chafed, and luckily I don't think it's cold enough for
thermal underwear. The polar outer gear is probably too much too, but it's
comfortable and lightweight, and with some silk for lining he should do
better.'

'Oh, poor Joshua! I'll rub some cream
into his skin.'

'No, I'm afraid he's not really in a mood
to be ministered to, Mama. We're going to have to be sneaky, like the silk
pants. I'll be back as soon as I can.' And she slung her good roomy bag over her
shoulder before she left the tent.

A Major Withers was in permanent charge
of the nightly rest camp. Dr Carriol had already been introduced to him in New
York, so he knew she was in effect his commanding officer on this exercise. She
had deemed him a particularly wooden-headed stickler for duty and detail, but
when she asked him to find her as many pairs of pure fine silk pyjamas as he
could, one pair at least tonight, he didn't flinch. He simply nodded, and
disappeared.

In the hospital tent she asked curtly for
supplies to treat chafing and boils, not daring to go
into detail; she was given powders and ointments, stuffed them into her bag
along with dressings, and returned to Dr Christian in the bath.

He was not in pain. That had finished at
the moment in which he was garlanded in flowers, a sign of such love and such
faith that he knew himself vindicated. They had come in their millions to be
with him on his last walk, and he would not disappoint them. Not if it cost him
his health, his last sane action. Judith had never really believed in him, only
in herself, but
they
believed in him. And he had never done anything for
her; it had all been for them. The walking was easy, once the flowers drugged
his pain. After the kind of conditions he had endured through the winter,
pulling his feet in and out of deep fresh snow, treading across rough razoring
ice, the March of the Millennium was more a waltz. Especially once he ascended
the special walkway they had built for him; all he had to do from then on was
open his legs wide in front and behind, and keep those legs moving steadily down
the soft, never-ending, level path which stretched away in front of him. Which
was narcotic in itself, so steady, so changeless, so unfraught with footfall
perils. He ate up the miles, he felt on that first day as if he could have
walked forever. And the people had followed, freed, happy.

The effect seeing his body would have on
Judith Carriol had not entered his mind, for he was indifferent to it himself,
and the pain was gone. Nor did he ever bother to look at himself in a mirror, so
actually he had no real idea how horrifying his appearance was.

Aaaaah! Not to worry. She had come to
heel as he had known she would, once he refreshed her memory about how much to
her advantage it would be to let him finish the March. He leaned his head back
against the side of the tub and relaxed deeply. Lovely! So peaceful to be lapped by something
churning even more violently than he himself.

At first Dr Carriol thought he must have
died, for his head was back at such an angle he was surely not using his
windpipe to breathe. She made a noise of alarm so loud it penetrated the roiling
bubbles; he lifted his head, opened his eyes and looked at her dimly.

'Come on, I'll help you out.'

To touch him with a towel would certainly
exacerbate his injuries, so she stood him to dry in the warm and well-ventilated
room, fairly free of steam because the water in the tub was barely warm.
Afterwards she laid him on a stretcher covered with several thicknesses of
cotton sheeting. Originally she had arranged for a masseuse, out of the question
now, of course. Still, the stretcher was useful. It seemed better not to tamper
with the healing effect of the salty bath and the subsequent dryness, so she
left his chafing and cracking and frostbite alone, contenting herself with
smearing a combined steroid and antibiotic ointment over his — abscesses?
carbuncles? They weren't boils, for each was enormous in size and
many-headed.

'Stay there,' she ordered. 'I'll bring
you some soup.'

Mama was busy sewing when she emerged
into the main room of the tent, but the others had all vanished, presumably to
bathe or nap before dinner.

'Oh, how clever of Major Withers to
deliver them straight to you! I wonder where he got silk pyjamas so
quickly?'

'They're his own,' said Mama, biting off
the thread between her little white useful teeth.

'Good God!' She laughed. 'Who would have
thought it?'

'How is Joshua?' Mama asked, so
offhandedly Dr Carriol knew she suspected he was quite ill.

'A bit miserable. I think I'm just going
to give him a big bowl of soup, nothing else. He can sleep where he is, it's comfortable.' She moved to
the table where food had been spread out, took a bowl in her left hand, a ladle
in her right. 'Mama?'

'Yes?'

'Do me a big favour, will you? Don't go
near him.'

Mama's large blue eyes filmed over, but
she swallowed her disappointment valiantly. 'If you think it's best, of
course.'

'I do think it's best. You're a gallant
soul, Mama. It's been an awful time for you, I know, but as soon as Washington's
over we'll send him away for a long rest, and you can have him all to yourself.
How does Palm Springs sound, huh?'

But Mama just smiled and looked sad, as
if she didn't believe a word of what she was being told.

When Dr Carriol came into the cubicle
bearing her bowl of soup, Dr Christian sat up and swung his legs over the side
of the tall stretcher. Now he looked very tired, but not exhausted, and he had
wrapped a cotton sheet around himself sarong-wise to hide the worst of his
wounds, which were from the chest down or hidden in his armpits. Even his toes
were beneath the edge of the sheet. Prepared for Mama, no doubt. She handed him
the soup without a word, and stood watching while he drank it.

'More?'

'No, thank you.'

'You'd better sleep in here, Joshua. I'll
bring you your fresh clothes in the morning. It's all right, the family just
think you're terribly tired and a bit irritable. And Mama is busy sewing a silk
lining into tomorrow's trousers. It's not that cold, you'll be better off with
silk than thermal stuff.'

'You make a very capable nurse,
Judith.'

'Only so far as my common sense takes me.
After that I'm lost.' The empty bowl in her hand, she looked at him, on eye
level because she was standing and he was sitting. 'Joshua,
why?
Tell me
why!'

'Why what?'

'This secrecy about your
condition.'

'It's never been that important to
me.'

'You
are
mad!'

He tilted his head to one side and
laughed at her through his eyelids, his mouth straight. 'Divine
madness!'

'Are you serious, or are you putting me
on?'

He lay down on his narrow bed and looked
at the ceiling. 'I love you, Judith Carriol. I love you more than any other
individual human being in the world,' he said.

That shocked her more than seeing his
body, shocked her into sitting down abruptly on the chair near his stretcher.
'Oh, sure! After what you said to me less than an hour ago, how can you now say
you love me?'

His head turned on the flat pillow and he
looked at her so sadly and strangely, as if her having to ask that of him was
but one more disappointment. 'I love you because of those things. I love you
because you need to be loved more than any other human being I have ever met. I
love you therefore in the full measure you need. And I do love you that
much.'

'Like an old ugly disfigured cripple!
Thanks!' She leaped up from the chair and rushed from the room.

The family was back; God protect me from
these Christians! Why could she never seem to find the right thing to say to him
any more? How could he expect to get a genuine reaction from her when he gave
her news like that at a time like this? Damn you, damn you, damn you, Joshua
Christian! How dare you presume to patronize me?

She turned on her heel, went back into
his cubicle, walked up to him as he lay with eyes closed, grasped his chin in
her fingers and pushed her face down to his. Six inches away. His eyes opened.
Black black black is the colour of my true love's eyes…

'Stick your love!' she said. 'Shove it up
your ass!'

In the morning Dr Carriol assisted Dr
Christian to dress, though more accurately he assisted her. He had crusted over
on the worst areas of chafing and cracking, but she didn't think this beginning
of a healing process would survive the day's march. Tonight she would have a
better arrangement in the bath cubicle, a proper bed for one thing, and some
sort of active exhaust system to suck stray wisps of steam out of the air. He
never said a word while she dressed him, just sat and stood and turned and put
his legs in and held his arms out in automatic response to the commands of her
hands. But no matter how he might deny it, he was in pain; when it caught him
unprepared he shivered like an animal, and when what must surely have been a
stab of agony pierced him, he jerked like an epileptic.

'Joshua?'

'Mmmmmm?' Not the most encouraging
response.

'Don't you think that somewhere along the
line each of us has to make a definite decision about life? I mean, where we are
going, whether we're going to set our sights big or small, on something personal
or something grander?'

He didn't answer; she wasn't even sure he
heard, but she went on doggedly anyway.

'There's nothing personal in this, I'm
just doing a job I happen to be good at doing, probably because I don't let
anything or anyone get in my way. But I'm not a
terrible
person! Truly
I'm not! You could never have gone among the people if I hadn't made it
possible, don't you see that? I
knew
what the people needed, but I
couldn't give them what they needed from myself. So I found you to do what had
to be done. Don't you understand that? And you have been happy, haven't you? In
the beginning you
were
happy, before the bugs started crawling around
inside your head. Joshua, you can't blame me for what's happened! You can't!' The last two words came out
despairing before they were even uttered.

'Oh, Judith, not now!' he cried
wretchedly. 'I don't have the time for this! All I want is to walk to
Washington!'

'You
can't
blame me!'

'Do I need to?' he asked.

'I guess not,' she said dully. 'But — oh,
I wish I was someone else! Haven't you ever wished that?'